Alec did an interesting post about the coming-of-age of his Voice 2.0 Manifesto. But in the first paragraph, he says something I have to take issue with:
I wish them luck, if so. If there’s anything that the last 4 years have shown, it’s that it’s hard to build a PC based soft phone. Skype is really the only company that has made a success of it, and it’s only in the last 12 months that sound quality has reached acceptable levels.
Skype a success? Sound-quality may’ve improved, but as a business, Skype is anything but successful. Several things worked against Skype’s success over the last several years–and the majority of them are merely tactical shortcomings on the part of Skype’s management:
- Relying too heavily on viral marketing rather than traditional brand awareness and even TOMA.
- Not distributing prepaid calling-cards to retail a la iTunes store cards. Heck I can buy these in my grocery store. Imagine if the same convenience were afforded to would-be Skype customers. Sure, credits are prepaid, but selling them in traditional retail reinforces the Skype brand and would’ve created an uptick in adoption to people my age (31) and older.
- No SIP. Makes the Skype network unattractive to businesses. Look, I’m not asking Skype to put SIP in the client, but SIP would be a great value-add to the SkypeOut/SkypeIn gateways around the world, especially when you consider the energy behind SIP-based products like Microsoft’s Office Communications Server.
- Not integrating with eBay the way everybody wanted. Let’s face it–that was the only real tangible opportunity hidden in the multi-million-dollar Skype buyout, and the company dropped the ball. Years have passed and I still don’t have the option to click-to-call an eBay seller. Moreover, it was Google who beat eBay to the punch by putting click-to-call in their own AdWords ads.
- Not offering client access using familiar technologies so people could expand the base platform. I mean, come on. VBScript, JavaScript, even Applescript. Where’s the client-side support that makes this thing accessible to mere mortals?
- Call-recording.
- Some kind of social network integration from the Skype client. Facebook status. MySpace status. Profile links in the buddy browser or better yet, a profile browser like Spyder build into the client. Yes, I know this is outside the bounds of Skype’s core functionality, but remember, we’re talking about the reasons they failed to receive mass adoption.
- Free-calling-in-exchange for ringbacks with advertising in them. Skype alone was/is in a position to succeed with this model.
